After exactly 365 days of being appointed as the coach of Indian cricket and a record of 12 wins in 17 Test matches India played under the legendary leg-spinner, Anil Kumble called it quits from the post of Indian cricket teams coach and did not travel with the team to the Caribbean. Kumble calling it quit sparked an outrage in the media which brought out the real reason of Kumble’s ouster.
The Kohli-Kumble fiasco divided the Indian cricketing fraternity raising the question that should the captain have a say in the selection of the national team’s coach. India’s former captain Rahul Dravid too had a say in the Kohli-Kumble saga. Dravid feels that whatever happened with Kumble was very unfortunate.
Dravid said:
“At the end of the day, I don’t know the specifics of that particular issue, but it shouldn’t have got played out in the way that it did, I think the whole thing got played out in the media which is very, very unfortunate for Anil and not fair on him at all.
Dravid feels the way the issue came out in public was very unfortunate and should not have been portrayed the in public the way it was shown:
“So, what’s the reality of it and what happens behind closed doors is not something I’m privy to, so I can’t comment directly. But it was definitely an unfortunate episode, especially to someone like Anil who has been an absolute legend of the game, someone who has done more to win Test matches for India than anybody I know. And he had a successful year as coach as well. But the fact is that it should never have played out the way that it did, publicly.”
Dravid feels that the coaching job comes with a risk of being sacked and being the coach of India ‘A’ and Under-19 team; he knows that his job is also under scrutiny all the time and he knows that one day he could be sacked as well.
“See, coaches get sacked. The first thing you know when you stop playing and become a coach is that some day you are going to get sacked, that’s the reality.” He also added, “As an India A and Under-19 coach, I know that someday I’m going to get the boot. Some football managers get sacked after two games, so that’s the reality. Players are more powerful than coaches. We know that because we were more powerful than coaches when we played.”
According to Dravid, players these days get superstardom all thanks to hype and coverage created by the media:
“A lot of cricketers come from humble, middle-class backgrounds. At the core of all this, if you remove the hype and hoopla, they are just normal guys who grew up and became heroes, they became heroes thanks to people like you [anchors, journalists], television asking for interviews, writing books about them. It’s the game that has made them heroes.”
“I read that the players have become too big, but who has made them too big? It’s very easy to say that, and also a lot of other people have become rich by players becoming rich. It’s reality now. It’s the fact of the matter. At the end of the day, cricketers are simple people. But everything gets blown out of proportion for them. So they have to deal with things a certain way.”